I kid my son that I miss watching his baseball games (he was finished last month after the house league season ended) in much the same way I looked longingly at the high school gym at my daughter’s orientation until she finally urged me to go in and sign myself up for intramurals.

I remind them, whenever it seems appropriate and sometimes when it’s not, of my athletic prowess at their age. And as much as I am scornful of the kind of parents who live through their children’s usually meager athletic feats, I can’t imagine how I would keep still if I had kids who were gifted in some sport.

My 11-year-old son plays soccer and baseball, enjoys it, is exceedingly coachable and a good athlete. But when the summer comes and travel baseball takes over the fields in town, he enjoys his only few months away from organized sports.

Funny, but he never takes a break from music.

I remember when my daughter was in second grade and all the other girls had seemingly found their niche – they were ice skaters or dancers or soccer players or actresses. And I remember being actually a little nervous that Amanda, at age 7, did not have a chosen vocation yet.

She dabbled in everything, had fun, but she wasn’t specializing in anything. What was to become of her?

Eventually, after she sat me down and urged me to get help, I figured out that if you’re lucky in life, you will be exposed to a lot of different things. But if you’re truly fortunate, you will find your passion as it finds you.

I think Alec may have found his.

I took him to his piano lesson tonight and like I always do when I go, I sat in the room with him and his teacher, a wonderful woman who doesn’t mind the intrusion. I always go with a couple magazines but I rarely read them. Instead, I listen and not just to the music but to them.

As they talk about E-minors and C-majors, four-four counts and five-seven chords and syncopation, I can’t help but think of my piano lessons from Mrs. Carter, a patient woman who spent the better part of a year just barely getting me through “Swaying Silver Birches” and “One Less Bell to Answer” (I was into Burt Bachrach, what can I say?).

Like Alec’s teacher, Mrs. Carter was smart enough to let kids play songs they had actually heard of with the hope that this might sustain their interest in music. But by this time, I was also 14th chair clarinet in the school band and pretty much knew my limitations.

And Mrs. Carter and I never, ever talked music like Alec and Mrs. L. do.  

They seem to get lost in their conversations, their heads tilting toward one another as they nod and laugh in this secret language to which I am a stranger.

After less than two years, I am told Alec can transpose. I do not know what this means but I think it’s good. He came home tonight and as he always does, went directly to the piano where he told me he was composing a song of moderate tempo.

“That’s 120 to the quarter-note,” he explained and I nodded.

I remember when we bought our piano. Alec had just begun lessons about six months before and it was clear that the little keyboard from Costco wasn’t going to cut it. We planned to find the cheapest (used) piano we could get and maybe stick it in the basement.

I actually thought it might be disruptive in the living room.

Of course, we ended up investing in a new one – “Promise you’ll still like piano for at least another year,” I remember saying to him in the piano store – and we put it in the living room where it is a source not of noise, but of graceful melody  that we cannot get enough of.

There are countless ways we fail to influence our kids. Alec picked the tuba as his first instrument in the school band.

“How about trumpet?” we asked. “The trumpet is nice, and look how you can actually lift it.”

“Nope,” he shook his head.

“How about trombone?” we tried. “It’s bigger, but we can still tell it’s you playing it.”

“Nope,” he said again.

The tuba was the biggest, explained our son, who still can’t see above it. But two years later, he is still loving it and if he doesn’t end up playing piano in the Chicago Symphony, maybe he’ll be the dot above the “i” in the script Ohio in Ohio State’s marching band. Or maybe he’ll just play for his own kids.

Either way, my husband and I are not sure from where this love was born. We can only listen as the music dances under his fingertips, his soul soars and his passion is ignited.

I am writing this on the family p.c. Why, you ask, would I be writing on a big, clunky computer when I have a nice, new laptop I have finally grown accustomed to and even like after weeks of learning how to live without the track ball thing on my old Tribune laptop?
 

The answer is that for the second time in the last month, I left my brand-new power cord to my brand-new laptop in a press box, this time at U.S. Cellular Field after the White Sox game last night. Once again, I got away with it because it was found and I will get it back. But this time, God decided I wasn’t going to get away with it quite so easily and I discovered I have no battery power on my laptop.
 

So there was that to mope about today, along with the phone call from a woman asking if I wanted to subscribe to the Tribune with the pitch: “We’ve made some great changes to the paper recently we think you’ll like.” I guaranteed her that I didn’t like the changes and then I sulked about this continued forgetfulness that would be funny if I wasn’t reasonably sure, given my gene pool, that this portends some approaching form of dementia.
 

Two weeks ago, I left the same power cord in the Wrigley Field press box. And a couple months before that, I left a brand-new (it’s always brand-new) set of noise cancelling headphones in a large black case with a brand-new micro-cassette recorder also inside the case, in the press room at the United Center after a Bulls game.
 

I’m thinking of driving to Soldier Field tomorrow and leaving something valuable there, just to get it over with.
 

I didn’t get the headphones back right away. In fact, after two weeks, I was sure they were gone and I had concluded that the cleaning crew had stolen them, and that all people were inherently bad and dishonest and evil. Then a few weeks later, it popped up in the possession of Blackhawks’ personnel, who were given the headphones by the nice,   responsible cleaning crew and had been kind enough to put it in their office for safekeeping until the unfortunate knucklehead who forgot them thought of contacting the other team that inhabits the United Center.  
 

My brother Barry, he of the same gene pool, and I have a theory for all of this forgetfulness. We have decided that the more you try to remember something, the larger the chance that you will then forget it.
 

It works this way: If someone were to tell you that you had to bring a special package with you to work tomorrow or else you will be fired, you would tell yourself that this is VERY important. Then you would put the package by the front door. Then you would tell yourself again that you must not forget it. And then you would forget it.
 

Why is this? Our theory, if you’re still interested, is that it’s because you have done your job by reminding yourself and by putting it by the front door. It’s so important that you could not possibly forget it. And you have now taken yourself off the hook and ensured you will without question forget it.
 

After forgetting my power cord at Wrigley, NO WAY could it possibly happen again. So I was VERY careful the next few times, going through an exaggerated checklist each time I left a game: Be sure to wrap up the power cord. Check. Put it in computer bag. Check. Is it really in there? Check. Now look back at work area and make sure it’s not there as I walk out. Check.
 

I did this once, twice, realized I was treating myself like a deranged three-year-old and stopped. Of course, this would not happen again. So I took myself off the hook. And it happened again.
 

Pretty good theory, huh? Beats the alternative, too.
 

I can forget anything. When I was pregnant with each child and even now, I still have the nightmare that I forgot to feed my baby or put them in the car. Now that they’re 11 and 14, it’s on them to make sure I don’t forget to feed them or put them in the car. But it still haunts me.
 

It makes me feel slightly better that when I just asked my family for a recent example of forgetting Alec somewhere, no one could remember the particulars. So I’m reasonably sure this is one thing he won’t be able to blame on me in future therapy sessions.
 

But I’m also thinking now that instead of writing about my power cord, I had some other, stunningly clever blog in mind for today. If only I could remember it.

You would think that in all my years of covering sports that I would have run into more than one notable sibling rivalry. If I did, it couldn’t have been all that notable since I don’t remember it. Only one stood out and still endures and that’s Venus and Serena Williams, who will meet Saturday for the fourth time in a Wimbledon final.

It used to be a joke, Williams vs. Williams, and one I couldn’t defend.

Here’s the first half of a column I wrote in July of 2000:

Someday they may learn how to hide their tears. Eventually they will surely downplay their emotions, possibly even resent the implication that emotions are involved. But forever it will taint their rivalry. No matter how hard they try it will infiltrate the competition, eat away at their concentration and ultimately affect their performance. And there’s not a thing Venus or Serena Williams can do about it. It is their curse as women, as sisters. The dynamic was exposed last week perhaps as never before. But never before have the Williams sisters, or any other sisters, met in an arena as large as the Wimbledon semifinals, where one inalienable fact became painfully obvious: Women are different. Yeah, yeah, big revelation there. Next we’ll be telling you that charbroiled hot dogs taste better than the boiled kind. But it’s not easy to acknowledge. Suggesting women are unlike men in any athletic competition has the potential to strip away what it took Title IX more than 25 years to achieve. It is tempting to be disappointed, maybe even angry. To look at the head-to-head series between Venus and Serena, and especially at their lackluster match last week, and wish they could somehow put aside the sister thing, to rise above what their hearts are telling them. To act, well, like men. That is what we’re talking about here, because it would be different if they were brothers. As different as parents telling their little boys to “shake hands and make up” while telling their little girls to “play nice,” the implication being that boys can still be friends after a battle but that it’s best for girls to avoid the battle in the first place. I went on to offer examples of brothers who competed against one another and wanted nothing more than to bash each other’s brains in, content and perfectly able to separate their competition on the field of play with their relationship off of it.

But not sisters.

Maggie Maleeva told me that she found it excruciating to compete against her older sister Katerina on the women’s tour.

“The way we were educated at home was to always help each other,” Maggie said, “and it was very sad when one of us lost. It just didn’t feel right to be competing.”

For years, the Williams’ competition was anything but, the sisters turning in horrendous performances against one another and once getting booed off the court in Indian Wells, Calif., after Venus withdrew with a suspicious injury.

They were accused of fixing their matches depending on which sister needed the victory more. And all through it, they looked as if they would rather be having their cartilage removed than playing against one another.

In their defense, the Williams’ were no Maleeva’s and have been dominating the sport at the highest level for more than a decade now. There simply is no precedent – for brothers or sisters – at this level of competition.

And I am happy to report that I was wrong. The Williams’ have risen above the sister thing.

In a 2008 Tier II event, they took their match to a third-set tiebreaker for the first time – perhaps because it was a Tier II event — before Serena won. But their next match was their third Wimbledon final and it was arguably the best Williams vs. Williams match ever with Venus prevailing in two sets.

Serena came back and won in two tiebreakers in the U.S. Open final last year and then Venus answered in a three-set win at the year-ending Sony Ericsson Championships. This year, they split again with two more thrilling matches in Dubai and Key Biscayne.

Their overall series record is 10-10. And while they remain each other’s biggest supporters, they have also figured out how to put that aside when they are on the court.

For the eighth time in 10 years Saturday, a Williams’ sister will be the Wimbledon champ. Venus, who has won there five times, will be trying to become the first woman to win three straight Wimbledon titles since Steffi Graf did it from 1991-’93.

Serena, a two-time Wimbledon champion, once again proved her unparalleled determination on  Thursday, when she came back from match point down at 4-5 in the third set against Russian Elena Dementieva, to win in the longest women’s semifinal in history.

Some point to the Williams’ continuing domination as Exhibit A in what’s wrong with the women’s game. But one day they will also be recognized as two of the best players the game has ever seen.

They just happen to be sisters.

We’ve been talking a lot about dogs in our house lately.

Our 11-year-old son Alec wants one and wants one badly, so much so that I’d like to get him one just to see the look of utter joy on his face. Then I’d like to put both the dog and Alec into a time machine and transport them back to before they met so they’d never know the difference.

We’re not dog-haters or anything. I grew up with a very nice little mutt named Hondo, who “sang” along to the Carpenter’s song “Close to You” whenever I played it on the piano. Or was it when I sang the song so loudly and played the piano so badly that she howled in pain? Either way, it was really cute.

My parents didn’t want a dog either. They had had one when my brothers and sister were little and the story goes that it snapped at me when they brought me home from the hospital and my mother ordered it out of the house. My brother Richard still thinks Pepper went to live on a farm. And all of my siblings still resent me a little to this day.

But when I was eight and out of immediate danger apparently, my brothers wore down our mother and  brought a new puppy home and named her Hondo, which was the nickname of Boston Celtics great John Havlicek, I imagine because Bulls guard Jerry Sloan wasn’t a good dog name. Our father was not pleased and our mother still wasn’t thrilled, so we had one of those dogs who was not allowed to go upstairs, on furniture, in certain rooms, on certain rugs or really, to act like a dog in any way.

She went out by herself, “did her business,” as my dad used to say, and returned home like the day laborer she was.  I think she carried a lunch box and thermos. Of course in those days, no one cared if you didn’t keep your dog on a leash or didn’t pick up after her “business.” Or if they cared, no one said anything and Hondo was very happy making her way – no pun intended – through the alleys of our neighborhood.

My father wouldn’t admit it, but he grew to really love Hondo. When she was sick, he gave her Campbell’s chicken noodle soup like she was one of us. My mom co-existed peacefully with Hondo as long as she stayed in her own area. Except once a year, on the Fourth of July while we were all out of the house, Hondo would become very nervous at the sound of fireworks, sneak upstairs, go into my parents’ bedroom – no doubt looking to be comforted – and throw up in my mother’s knitting basket.

When Hondo passed away, we were all very sad. I was away at college when it happened and my mother, afraid of how I would take the news, elected not to tell me on the phone. Instead, when I came home a week later, she cushioned the blow by running down the driveway shouting, “HONDO’S DEAD.”

This could be why I was not in so much of a hurry to get a dog as an adult.

The official reason is that I’m allergic. And I am. Really. My husband, who never had a dog and is not allergic, thinks a dog would be a major inconvenience and we would never be able to leave the house again, ever.

Together, we agree that at least one adult in the house should be really committed and fully prepared for a dog before bringing it into the family, even though people have babies all the time without adhering to this rule. For his part, Alec calls up puppy websites every day, makes us look at them and occasionally prints out their photos for mounting around the house.

For a long time, none of this was an issue because we were those people everyone wonders about with kids who were afraid of dogs. Our children would cower in our front yard or at people’s houses when dogs were present and the owners would always give us suspicious, slightly dirty looks as if to say, “What kind of filthy lies could you have possibly told your children about animals that would make them so afraid?”

OK, I’ll tell you what we did.

Once, when Amanda was two, an unleashed dog (I know, just like Hondo) ran up to her, knocked her down and when she jumped up screaming, chased her through the park with me in close pursuit. OK, so the dog was roughly the size of one of her shoes and could not have inflicted much damage. But Amanda did not know that. And the worst part was when I caught up to them and the dog was on top of her (OK, kissing her) and she was hysterical, the owner lectured me on how I should not allow her to be so scared of dogs.

Good thing I’m so polite by nature or I may have said something I’d later regret about her and her out-of-control Chihuahua.

Alec may have gotten knocked down once or twice too. It’s hard to remember the second-child stories. Or maybe he just saw Amanda flinch and run whenever a dog was present and was unduly influenced. Whatever the case, both children were deathly afraid and anti-dog until fairly recently, when a former friend got a Shih-poo for her kids.

If the name Shih-poo wasn’t bad enough, the dog happened to be cute and, just our luck, loved Alec and Alec loved her. The former friend encouraged this relationship and what’s worse, calls and persuades us to buy a dog with a ridiculous name as well.

So now we talk about dogs a lot. And look at their pictures.

And maybe some day, we’ll even visit Alec’s dog at his house.

If I was a Cubs fan, I might not feel this way. And if I was a man, I know I would not feel this way.  But as a woman and an impartial observer, I was fascinated by the confrontation between Cubs manager Lou Piniella and his “star” rightfielder Milton Bradley this weekend.

I put star in quote marks because Bradley has not played this season like someone paid $30 million for three years is expected to perform. The Cubs knew they were taking a chance in signing him because Bradley, for all of his wondrous talents, has a long history of acting like a deranged two-year-old in need of a nap.

But the part that really interested me was how much the two men acted like women this weekend – or at least like women are often stereotyped.

I will not stereotype because I learned in journalism school that this is not a good thing to do. And also because it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as what I am going to do instead, and that’s to project how I and most women I know would act if we were in the same situation.

The problem started when Bradley, after flying out against the Sox on Friday (the day after being benched for poor performance in Detroit), threw his helmet in the dugout and smashed the water cooler.

OK, this part is a little hard for me to envision for myself or any woman I know since women, as a general rule, do not resort to smashing and throwing. For example, when I strike out repeatedly in softball, I usually come into the dugout and apologize to all of my teammates for being so bad, and if no one consoles me, I will start making excuses like the pitcher is putting too much spin on the ball or I can’t find a bat that isn’t way too heavy. Suffice to say, I do much more talking than smashing.

Next, Piniella ordered Bradley to take off his uniform and leave the ballpark, after which Piniella said Bradley mumbled something under his breath.  That’s when Piniella followed Bradley into the clubhouse and yelled at him, “You’re not a player, you’re a piece of s—.”

Piniella was angry not just because Bradley has not been hitting this season, but because he’s a monumental pain, getting ejected and suspended for arguing in his first Wrigley Field at-bat; complaining that umpires pick on him; continuing his reputation for nursing seemingly minor injuries; and flinging helmets when things don’t go his way.

I am not going to say women do not say things we wish we hadn’t. I’m guessing there are even women in management positions who have resorted to cursing at an employee who has been as big an annoyance as Bradley has. I think, again not to stereotype, that most of us would be a little more clever than Piniella in his choice of words, but that’s being nit-picky.

One of the things that set Lou off was that someone – and he accused clubhouse workers at Sox Park – gossiped to the media about his verbal assault.

I suspect it was Bradley who blabbed to one too many people about what Lou said, and that’s what got back to a Sun-Times reporter. But this would not happen to most women. Why? Because we have all learned that when saying anything gossip-worthy in a public place – good or bad and no matter how far from your home base – you always take a long look around first, lower your voice and use made-up names.

Before Friday’s game, Bradley told Tribune reporter Paul Sullivan that he was not bonding with his teammates.

“I had a good rapport with [fired hitting coach Gerald Perry],” Bradley said.” I trusted Gerald and I could talk to him, and he’s gone. I think I clicked with [ex-Cub outfielder Joey] Gathright and he’s gone. So you just kind of feel like you’re on an island, and trying to stay afloat.

“The teammates, they’re there and they say all the right things, but it’s just [small talk]. . .

“I’m really not a guy who’s seeking any attention. I’m not seeking to be noticed . . . I just want to be part of a group and fit in and just love and be loved. That’s the basis of what I am . . . Maybe years ago I might have thought I wanted all this, but I really don’t want all the attention.”

OK, first let me just say that if a woman in a prominent position making $30 million said something like this publicly, she would be ridiculed in every newspaper, Internet blog and People Magazine for weeks, perhaps months. Let me also say that if Bradley was a woman, most women I know would consider her one of those whiny, needy, extremely annoying types that make you change aisles when you see her heading your way behind a grocery cart.

Bradley’s teammate, Derrek Lee, called Bradley at home that night after the fight with Piniella, reassured him that all of his teammates liked him and urged him to come early to the game the next day and not to sulk.  

If he was a woman, Lee would be heading up the most troublesome committee on the PTA, the kind of woman I could never be because I lack the patience. I would be much more likely to hurl expletives, a la Piniella, than to call Bradley and reassure him after that display.

The next day, Piniella apologized to Bradley for cursing at him, and told reporters he felt badly all evening.

“We won a ballgame yesterday and I didn’t enjoy the win at all,” Lou said. “I had dinner with my wife last night. It was on my mind all night. . . . It really took the joy out of winning a baseball game.”

This would be about the point where, if I was playing the Lou part, my husband would tell me to forget about it, that everything would be fine. In other words – he would be completely irritated that I would dwell on a silly argument all night and allow it to ruin dinner. 

Piniella took Bradley into his office where Bradley said the two “shed some tears.”

“He didn’t feel good about the situation and neither did I,” Bradley said. “We had a heartfelt talk and we’re both the better for it.”

And finally, a female moment I can relate to.